Schulz Electric celebrates 50 years of lighting Northfield

Schulz Electric has been lighting up Northfield area businesses, farms, developments and residences since 1974.

Over the years, Schulz has installed the lighting systems at Reunion, Redemption and Culver’s restaurants, Imminent Brewing, Northfield Public Library, the Laura Baker Campus and the streetlights along historic Division Street downtown.

All of that electrical wiring was done by a family-owned company based on the city’s northside that has so far, only been passed down two generations in its five decades of operation.

Over the last 50 years, Mike Schulz said his family business has served 4,000 customers in the greater Northfield area.

That impressive number is not an estimate. That figure was determined from service records kept using QuickBooks, said Schulz, who took over the family business from his father Fred in 1998.

A celebration of service

Last week, 75 people joined the Schulz family to celebrate 50 years of business. The party was held at the shop, 32110 Dresden Ave. Many of the attendees were current and former employees and many of those 4,000 customers.

After Fred returned from military service in Korea and earned a degree from Dunwoody tech school in Minneapolis, they slowly grew the business that included accounts with agricultural, commercial, industrial and residential clients.

Steve Schmidt, who has owned Schmidt Construction for 42 years, said working as a general contractor on jobs with Schulz Electric has been rewarding.

“They do a nice job servicing people,” said Schmidt. “They do the full spectrum of jobs, from commercial to residential and from remodels to farms. They are prompt, they are people pleasers, and they make sure their clients are happy.”

Schmidt said in a town like Northfield, positive word of mouth is the life blood of a locally-operated business. “That’s a good thing too, because it keeps everybody honest.”

Chris Kennelly, a founder and president of Bluewater commercial real estate and president/owner of Northfield Construction Company, called Schulz Electric a “great vendor and a great sub-contractor.”

“They’re just stand up people,” said Kennelly.

In 2013, when Kennelly purchased Northfield Construction Company, he said Schulz Electric was one of the first businesses he partnered with. “They’ve been with us on challenging projects that involved historic remodels,” he said. “They are creative, trustworthy and fiscally responsible. They roll up their sleeves and get the jobs done.”

Kennelly said he’s also watched them hire and train new employees who continue to grow into leadership roles.

Modeling leadership

In the early years, Anne remembers she and Fred worked with Northfield’s early residential and commercial developers, the people who helped transform the two-college town into a city.

Mike remembers learning on the job when he helped his dad on a wiring job to retrofit the lights at St. Dominic’s School. “He directed me from a lawn chair,” he said.

Anne handed over the bookkeeping to Kenna in 2001 and eventually retired in 2014. She remembered that the business really struggled after Fred died and most of the employees quit.

“That was really a rough time,” she said.

But, once Mike took over and the pair established a compatible system, she said she enjoyed working in the business alongside her son. “We had a good working relationship,” she said. “He had his area, and I had mine. I can’t complain.”

While the work of wiring a building hasn’t changed, the business has changed with more jobs in the pipeline and the constantly changing construction codes driving up prices. Today, Mike said the average residential job takes two employees 4-5 days to rough in the wiring and usually 7-8 days to finish the work.

Asked about the hazards of the job beyond getting shocked, Mike said their workers are all well trained. “It’s not dangerous work if you know what you’re doing,” he said.

Mike, who spent two years studying at the University of Minnesota-Morris, and two years at Dunwoody College of Technology, recalled that his own first solo hands-on job was wiring the school’s computer lab.

Now, Mike said Schulz Electric has 50-60 jobs contracted out, and that estimate doesn’t include the one to two hour service calls that involve smoke detectors, fixtures and outlet maintenance. He has 11 employees now, but the business continues to grow.

“If we grew too much, we’d have to add a manager but that might not be revenue justified,” he explained. “I’ve got to be careful to keep that balance.”

Family remains at the center of the business. Mike and Kenna, who originally met through 4-H Club in high school, were married in 1996 and now have three adult children aged 19, 22 and 24.

The couple said they don’t want to pressure any of their offspring to take over the business. “We want our kids to do what they want to do,” she said.